Rating: 
Summary: Love this one
Review: It's Hichcokian, but it's still unique De Palma. One of those movies that you stay up late to watch and end up getting wrapped up in the atmosphere, mystery etc
Rating:
Summary: terrific thriller!
Review: I love this movie! It's scary, erotic, suspenseful, a bit campy... and not for all tastes. That's because of the bloody scenes which might turn off some people and the twisted ending. But if you want to see something out of the ordinary, this one's definitely worth watching. There are also some great voyeur/stripping scenes in it. And I love that weird house!The only other movies by Brian DePalma that I've seen are MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE (1996) and MISSION TO MARS (2000), both of which I didn't like. But I've heard he's made a lot of other great movies like this one in the past. I definitely have to check out those movies. And you should check out this one if you haven't seen it.
Rating:
Summary: To be a voyeur or to be a vampire
Review: Brian de Palma is at his best in this film. We can of course push aside the funny elements, such as the claustrophobic vampire. That is only funny, and yet it is essential in the film, because this claustrophobia explains at least two elements in the crime story. Far more interesting is the voyeurism of the main character. This voyeurism is the key of the film. He is trapped into witnessing the killing of a woman by her own husband he thinks is an Indian and a thief, by the husband himself who lends him his apartment to keep for a little while but he ensnares him in the apartment with the possibility to watch a neighbor doing strip-tease acts. And this is the serious business in the film. The crime itself is nothing. But the voyeurism is really enticing and thrilling, intellectually. First the police does not do their job because the main witness, supported though by two other witnesses, is a voyeur, so they don't trust him, even if they don't push charges against his voyeurism. Voyeurism is a crime in the US and it perverts police work and makes a witness untrustable. But what is the meaning of voyeurism in our societies ? It is the power of the eye, it is the extension of the eye. It is an essential element in man's understanding and grasping of the world. The first way for man to situate himself in the world is through his vision. So, what a man can see is fundamental for his self-positioning in the world. There is no escape here. And it is the source of a tremendous pleasure, the pleasure of belonging in a real situation. The second dimension is that voyeurism deals with what people do not hide to the outside world. In other words voyeurism is the result of exhibitionism. If people did not show what they do show, people would not try to see it. Voyeurism is more the result of exhibitionism than anything else. But we are in a film and the cinema is supposed to show things that we would normally not see. The cinema, another extension of the eye, is basically exhibitionistic. It has to show private events for itself to be in anyway effective. So Brian de Palma is speaking of his art. If voyeurism is a sex-offense, then all cinema-goers are sex-offenders and should be put behind bars. And all cinemas should be closed. And all televisions should be destroyed. In other words, society does not follow the human track that has brought humanity from blind animality, and it would have meant death and extinction, to seeing things, interpreting things, analyzing things, building theories about things. Teaching has been using the eye for centuries. In the days when we could not read, in the Middle Ages, teaching was done in churches through visual aids, such as pictures, frescos, paintings, tapestries, sculptures that all gave the faithful the possibility to see and understand the teachings of the church, the teachings of the Book. And the film shows how the voyeuristic witness is in fact perfectly human, because he tries to go beyond what he saw and understand what he saw, which leads him to the truth, to the criminal. This film is so well done at this level of the eye, that every single scene is built in a way that our eye is fascinated, titillated and led into pure pleasure, the pleasure of suspense as well as the pleasure of truth. We are turned into voyeurs in order for the film to work as a crime story. We could analyze every single camera shot to show how the camera, which is another extension of the eye, is turned into an extension of our very personal and own eyes. We see through the camera and it moves the way we would move if we were in the situation. The main character is then our bodydouble, the one through which we project ourselves into the picture. In other words there is no distance at all between us and the situation. We are in the situation and we see with our own eyes what the main character is supposed to see with his eyes. Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, Paris Universities II and IX.
Rating: 
Summary: OK, so it's not Hitchcock
Review: DePalma's middle finger to feminists and other critics who decried his abuse of female characters. To get the joke is to appreciate the movie fully. On the other hand, feminists and humans in general should have been outraged not by the power drill, but by (1) the cheesy makeup on the villain, (2) Shelton's entire performance, and (3) the knack DePalma has for derailing his story's momentum just before the end. (He did it in Blow Out, his best movie, also.) See it uncut. The final shot, which of course never makes it onto television, sums up his entire response to his detractors.
Rating: 
Summary: Pleas read this
Review: i purchased this film based on the well-recieved reviews posted. but as i watched this hitchcock rip-off i realized that reading what others think is pointless. this film was very disappointing. there was no suspense, craig wasson is a horrible actor, the ending was weak, and even the music was a let down(unlike sisters, carrie, and dressed to kill). some of the scenes were just bogus. like the scene in which the woman is killed with the power drill(i mean come on, lets be a little realistic here) and the scene in which wasson and the mysterious woman he's been following kiss(that was one of the silliest scenes in the film). brian depalma should be ashamed of himself. vertigo and rear window are classic suspense films but body double is just another depalma wanna be. i dont recommend this film to anyone. i wish that i hadn't bought this tape. i was extrememly dissatisfied. the one star is for melanie griffith.
Rating:
Summary: RUN QUICKLY! SAVE YOURSELF!
Review: ...Not only does it derive the entire story from Hitchcock movies, but its also graphically violent and sensationalist where Hitchcock would have used subtlety, the scene where a woman is killed with a POWER DRILL is pobably the best example of DePalma's second rate abiilities as a director...Do youself a favor and get one of his better movies like carlito's way, the untouchables or mission impossible. Or even better buy Vertigo or Rear window,...ever major scene in the movie has pretty much been derived from an older and better movie.
Rating: 
Summary: Derivative, but has its guilty pleasures
Review: Yes, Pino Donaggio's lush, wicked score is worth the price ofadmission, and DePalma does pull some great technical punches in twokey sequences ladled with Donaggio's strings and synthesizers. The Frankie Goes to Hollywood porno shoot is fun and ingenious. But does it all add up? Almost, but not really. The climax is contrived and implausible. DePalma does provides some comic glimpses into the backside of show biz - high and low - that will be appreciated by veterans or current employees. Nevertheless, the film, thematically, is all over the place, and never as concise as Hitchcock, and it is - in the end - Pino Donaggio's fine score that holds it all in place.
Rating:
Summary: it's all about watching
Review: I think this is the best movie Brian DePalma ever did, and that's saying something. A great meditation on voyeurism (both the characters and ours), this is a sylish, witty, and scary film. The location manager deserved an Oscar. John Lautner's Chemosphere house, the Rodeo Collection, Mulholland Drive, and the California aqueduct are used to great effect in this movie (even though we are asked to believe that they are all in Beverly Hills), and the camera work is fantastic. In one shot, the movement of a swinging door is the only clue that we are watching the filming of a porn video. I won't get into the plot, which is covered better in some of the other reviews, but I thought it was very entertaining, and the principles as well as the supporting cast are first rate. I wish they still made movies like this one- ones that can keep you watching from behind your fingers, but still make you think to keep up with them
Rating:
Summary: DePalma Ain't Hitchcock....
Review: ...but was every one of Hitchcock's film considered great when they first came out? No. Critics started giving him more props in retrospect. And such is the case with DePalma's crazysexybloody suspense thriller "Body Double". It is much, much better than originally thought. You have got to give it to the man for the sheer audacity of not sparing us from a thing in the graphic drill scene, but, hey, like the peeping tom Wasson, we wanted some kinda payoff of all this voyeurism...I mean, that's what the average movie viewer wants also. It gets kinda surrealistic thinking about all this who's watching who, but the upshot is--did DePalma set us up, big time! Ain't that what we want from movies, anyhoo? Also, he set us up with several other scenes, such as with the bloody ending credits and the gravesite scene. I also think DePalma kinda thought it was 'in-jokey' to have Melanie Griffith cast in one of his most blatantly Hitchcockian (this and "Dressed to Kill", are the two) thrillers. You are gonna have so much fun with this in DVD.
Rating:
Summary: Anyone who thinks this is porn...
Review: ...come to my house and I'll show you the real thing. Very entertaining story, well-made by DePalma. Fun, Hitchcockian sleaze.
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